Posted on 11/29/2006 8:36:31 AM PST by XR7
HAVRE DE GRACE, Md. — When they called her name, she could not move. Sgt. Leana Nishimura intended to walk up proudly, shake the dignitaries' hands and accept their honors for her service in Iraq — a special coin, a lapel pin, a glass-encased U.S. flag.
But her son clung to her leg. He cried and held tight...T.J. was 9, her oldest child, and although eight months had passed since she had returned from the war zone, he was still upset by anything that reminded him of her deployment...
The faraway move to live with his grandmother. The months that went by without his mother's kisses or hugs, without her scrutiny of homework, her teasing humor, her familiar bedtime songs.
Nishimura was a single mother — with no spouse to take over, to preserve her children's routines, to keep up the family apartment.
Of her three children, T.J. seemed to worry most... "He went from having one parent to having no parents, basically," Nishimura said, reflecting. "People have said, 'Thank you so much for your sacrifice.' But it's the children who have had more of a sacrifice."
When war started in Iraq, a generation of U.S. women became involved as never before — in a wider-than-ever array of jobs, for long deployments, in a conflict with daily bloodshed. More than 155,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among their ranks are more than 16,000 single mothers, according to the Pentagon, a number that military experts say is unprecedented.
How these women have coped and how their children are managing have gone little noticed as the war stretches across a fourth year...
"I tell [the children] that if God needs Mommy to go ... then Mommy's going to have to go again and they're going to have to let me."
(Excerpt) Read more at archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Pret'near the whole purpose of Free Republic, and every post on it, is to "be judgmental" --- to discuss our judgment of people, events, and ideas. Check it out. Every post makes a judgment of some sort. Even yours.
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I'm not sure exactly when in our society making judgments became so unacceptable. It seems to me that it should be encouraged, especially now.
Well, "deuce", your Mom became a WIDOW when your father died, she DID NOT become a "single Mother".
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LOL. I see from the thread that you have been called to the carpet by a number of us who read "single mom" literally, as in, a mother with no husband in the home, regardless of reason.
It's pretty clear that you wish to hold "single mom" as equal to "unwed mother" so you can beat said unwed mothers with your morality hammer. That's fine. You made your point very clearly to me.
This exchange of what is or is not , or who should or should not be called a "single mother" is just silly, and has almost hijacked this entire thread. Please stop it. It detracts from the whole point of the original post, and that is the propriety of the U.S. sending our women and mothers into combat. Let's get back on track already.
This exchange of what is or is not , or who should or should not be called a "single mother" is just silly, and has almost hijacked this entire thread. Please stop it. It detracts from the whole point of the original post, and that is the propriety of the U.S. sending our women and mothers into combat. Let's get back on track already.
And great numbers removed themselves anyway.
But you, of course, would never do such a thing.
Like I said, somehow, by a miracle of God, if you were faced with a real possibility of being conscripted into the military, you would manage to get yourself declared 4-F.
You discuss what you want and we'll discuss what we want. Thanks for being the thread nanny, though...
On that part precisely, you've got it right (finally)
It's short for "single-and-desperately-looking-for-a-man-to-pay-for-my-mistakes mother"
Whattaya wanna bet Donna was one of the skanks howling about letting more women in the military a few years ago?
And .. these are the very same people who support Rangel's legislation to DRAFT WOMEN.
These people are lunatics.
What do you think of these empowered single mothers?
Threads like this attract misogynists,,men who love to call women selfish, whorish and make sexually charged comments. They are disgusting.
LOL.... That's what they would say!!!
Good questions.
There are whole industries eager to expand their market share: diversity consultants and lawyers who will find a reason to sue even if it contradicts the arguments they made in their victorious lawsuit just a few years before.
I know the communists were particularly eager to undermine the American military, so it wouldn't surprise me if there were radicals who wanted to use traditional morality against itself: make the Army a bastion of radical social policy, and honorable people won't be willing to serve in it, and we'll end war and live in a workers' paradise of peace and harmony, riding ponies and waving rainbow flags...
I doubt active subversion is as much an issue right now. But of course, radicals do believe that if they make it in the military, they've made irreversible gains. The military is consistently more admired than any other profession in the country.
It's the Gramscian long march through the institutions. If they capture the military, they'll advance their agenda plenty. They'll cynically use the military as human shields to advance their goals, and uncritical people who retain that just respect for the military will end up defending radical policies before they know it.
When people cite the military of Stalinist Russia to justify women in combat, something is very, very wrong.
More than that! In the Bible it is said that a MAN who just married should not go to war. Or even a man who just built a house or planted a vineyard should not go. Sending mothers of small children to war is an ABOMINATION before God!
And the officers shall speak unto the people, saying, What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.
And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it.
And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.
(Deut:20)
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